A Legitimate discussion on the failure of EPVP policy regarding scammers

[turtlebeach]

Not really any other forum that suited this posting well, and tbh, like the one other time I tried to question an issue regarding this site the thread was immediately locked and dismissed, so who even knows if this one will be allowed to remain open anyway, lol.

So, I recieved a warning for "posting a scamming accusation outside of its appropriate forum" blah blah blah whatever. No worries, I don't really care about the warning. What I do care about is the fact that people are continually getting scammed because such a failed policy exists. So, the following is the diatribe I sent to the staff explaining just how such a policy negative impacts you, the community.

(as a brief background, policy essentially dictates that unless you are willing to share sensitive, and quite honestly dangerous information with other users in TBM, the staff will do nothing to scammers regardless of how many community members report them to staff, and conversely, punishes all those people who get scammed and speak up about it, leaving a marketplace ripe for the pickings of iniquitous trademen)

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Meh, I understand I broke the rules and I'll admit to that. However, I (and quite honestly, the majority of the legit users on this site) would simply argue that such policy - while perhaps initially well intentioned - is inherently flawed.

The bottom line is that there is such a small percentage of sellers in TBM that will actually agree to the "safe trading practices" that the only viable method of engaging in transactions is to be willing to take some small risk. This is no different than buying an "off label" product at the grocery store. You risk getting an inferior product over the reward of getting that product at a better price (or even being able to get it at all if the name brand product is not available.

However, in the event that a product you 'took a risk on' is inferior or not-as-advertised, public opinion of that product soon gets that product off the shelf. Based on the epvp policy however, the result is that said products are forbidden from being reviewed except in the instance of "positive review, vouches, etc" (often done so by the same person on a dupe account).

Any negative reviews of a service are relegated to the dungeon of despair (AKA the complaint forum) where scammers are only dealt with (though I'm not even sure if they ever really are) in the event that some arcane (and honestly, wholly unsafe) practices are followed. Honestly, what legitimate individual is going to engage in a goods or services practice that is already violating the terms of original application (botting, account selling, etc, which violates Riot's TOS) and in the process give out their phone #, address, bank account info, etc. Conversely, what purchaser in their right mind is going to provide the same info to get a service from some random unknown individual on the internet?

I suspect that TBM has it's name for a reason: its obviously a grey area to deal with at best. The ability for the community to regulate TBM is what allows such places to exist (and often thrive) in the real world. The successful brothels are not the ones with skanks riddled with STD's. However, that's exactly what TBM is at epvp, and not because there are magically more bad people here, but because the policies instituted prevent the free market from removing those people from operation.

As a clear cut example to this point, I will finish by noting that another forum I am a part of, has a clear policy that if you are accused of scamming someone, the burden falls to you to prove you did not. If you can't meet that burden, then you are banned. There, as in the real world, the onus falls to the business to take appropriate precautions when engaging in business, rather than on the consumer, who is after all the driving force behind the market. This is how ebay works, its how mom and pop stores work, it's how the big chain stores work. Hell, its even how local drug dealers work. So, I can only wonder why the rulemakers at epvp have decided to forego common sense and run a gestapo style campaign to silence consumers from warning other community members about nefarious business owners.

[Mister Joy]

To prevent the kids from slandering, the answer is simple as that bye.

[theitfan1337]

I can understand that you are frustrated, yet I fear that you focus too much on a few aspects to be right. To cut it as short as possible, I'm going to comment just on your most severe false assumption.

Originally Posted by turtlebeach

As a clear cut example to this point, I will finish by noting that another forum I am a part of, has a clear policy that if you are accused of scamming someone, the burden falls to you to prove you did not.

This is it not how it will ever work here. elitepvpers used to be a German board once and although having gone international quite some time ago, we still build our rules on German law. In German law, there is this basic concept "in dubio pro reo", a Latin saying that means everyone is guiltless as long as there are doubts - even just tiny ones. Abstracting this, you see why you have to prove someone to be a scammer and not the other way round.

You really should try to see things from another point of view.

[DSAPMDIOASMKDSA]

u cant say, thats a legitimate discussion, because it exists always little kiddys or scammers... and then they will post in this "LEGITIMATE DISCUSSION"

[turtlebeach]

This ideal is not fundamentally different from the concepts of "innocent until proven guilty" and the burdern of "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" employed in the states. However, a critical point I fear you are missing is that these concepts exists because people are given the freedom to make valid accusations. Authorities then investigate; if evidence warrants further investigation or prosecution, it occurs. Conversely, those that make false accusations are punished for doing so as well.

Surely if any group of individuals could appreciate the ability to speak up about injustices, it would be a group that once had such freedoms stripped from them.
Additionally, being a developed 1st world country, Germany certainly features as much (if not more) consumer regulation as the US, especially in industries of critical human interest (the BfR as a prime example).

Again, I'm just not sure I understand why the leaders of the community wouldn't be interested in creating a safer environment for the community to conduct trades in. What exactly is the downside is what I'm wondering?

[John Dread]

At the moment I don't have the time to give a detailed answer, but I'll make a brief summary of our point of view. (First off, Nomad has stated one aspect already, so I won't mention that).
You asked about the downsides of allowing everyone to openly post scammer accusations. I don't think you have any idea of how many people with twisted minds would abuse this freedom to damage others. They would simply accuse pretty much anyone who is offending them in the slightest way, regardless of the relevance of that personal grudge to the actual case/trade. Therefore the other party will, in return, either just complain to us or simply post an accusation as well. The result is chaos. Chaos you cannot regulate without having 12 callcenters in India (no racism intended). That pattern is fueled simply by the nature of the internet. Anonymity not only gives you the option but rather encourages you to such actions. You can't expect everyone to just argue their problems out in an adequate way. They tend to put too many emotions into that. If we ask the accused party to post proof of its innocence, what kind of proof would we need? Skype logs? Because that's all there is, right? Those are so easily fakeable. We can't accept those even if we could handle the sheer number of accusations. That's another downside of the way the internet works.
However, we do allow and regulate trade feedback. There isn't only positive TBM feedback but also negative. If you got scammed, you simply give him a negative rating. Isn't that exactly what you ask for? You rate the trade and others can see it. I don't get how you miss that aspect. It's also way more controlled than open forum posts. You can only rate certain trades and everything (except the trade itself) is logged.

[ღ ∂ Ropp]

But John, I believe you should ban the obvious scammers by there IP's.
I mean come on, how is this guy still on elitepvper's.












He scammed like 250 people, and he's still roaming elitepvper's. You guys should do something about the obvious scammers, the ones reported more than 10 times /;

[Obilee]

Originally Posted by ღ ∂ Ropp

But John, I believe you should ban the obvious scammers by there IP's.
I mean come on, how is this guy still on elitepvper's.












He scammed like 250 people, and he's still roaming elitepvper's. You guys should do something about the obvious scammers, the ones reported more than 10 times /;

Yeah IP-Banns with dynamic IPs are soooo effective...there is no point to ban him, he will create a new account and do the same stuff again. Therefore we have the rating system here, if you see that he has negative rating then don't trade with him.

If you really want see any actions against him then go to the police, they will get every information that they need from us.

And even you should see in your linked trades: There are all in Skype, srsly if you don't want to use our trading systems then don't expect our help with those easily fakable "proofs".

[theitfan1337]

Originally Posted by turtlebeach

Again, I'm just not sure I understand why the leaders of the community wouldn't be interested in creating a safer environment for the community to conduct trades in.

Everyone here at elitepvpers is trying desperately to make your trades as safe as possible. If there were like a Top 3 of most discussed topics among staff, it'd be surely in there.
However, as John mentioned, the Internet has a quite controversial aspect: Anonymity. Being just a board, we don't have the powers to investigate in scams more explicitly. The police has. Taking legal action against scammers is the best you can do and it's more we could ever do.

PS: Not to drift off topic, but to make one thing clear: the German judiciary and the US' have less in common than one might think. To give an example: Whilst in the US, the public prosecution department is supposed to collect all evidence that proofs the accused's guilt, in Germany it must investigate for both sides, possibly having to reveal the accused's innocence and therefore requesting acquittal, not just the trial's settlement like it works in the US.